Operation Lam Son 719

Operation Lam Son 719 was an unsuccessful South Vietnamese incursion into southeastern Laos which occurred from 8 February to 25 March 1971 during the Vietnam War.

The Cambodian Campaign of 1970 temporarily reduced the flow of North Vietnamese men and supplies through Cambodia, but they were still flowing down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. President Richard Nixon wanted them stopped, but the South Vietnamese ARVN had to do it alone, as, by the end of 1970, the US Congress had barred all US ground personnel (even advisors and special forces) from crossing the border. On 8 February 1971, 17,000 ARVN troops moved into southern Laos to destroy the enemy's jungle bases and to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, while the Americans provided air support. Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger believed that an ARVN victory would bolster South Vietnamese morale and prove that the ARVN could fight and win once Vietnamization was over. The South Vietnamese forces moved out of Khe Sanh and up Highway 9, targeting the NVA logistics base at Tchepone. US intelligence believed there were no more than 22,000 NVA troops in the area, but there would eventually turn out to be 60,000, and they predicted the one route the ARVN would take. Although individual ARVN units fought bravely, the invasion was a failure, with almost half of the 17,000 ARVN troops being killed, wounded, or captured during the invasion, among them Colonel Tran Ngoc Hue, who was wounded three times and captured, while only 55 of his 600 battalion soldiers surviving the NVA ambush. In late March, as the surviving ARVN forces straggled across the border into South Vietnam, crowds of weeping, women, and children dressed in white (the color of mourning) begged for news of the soldiers who were missing, and the ARVN suffered a demoralizing defeat. Kissinger's confidence in the ARVN after three years of Vietnamization was destroyed by the campaign in southeastern Laos.